Page:Spiritual Reflections for Every Day in the Year - Vol 1.pdf/55



OW important is it to believe and to be baptized! It involves salvation and the life that is everlasting. When the Lord established his church in the world as his kingdom on earth. He instituted the two sacraments of Baptism and the Holy Supper. These are not to be viewed as mere ceremonials, but as the two sacraments which prefigure to every reflective mind an introduction into the church on earth, and an entrance into that tranquillity of peace which is conjunction with the Lord. That we should view baptism with reverence, and pass through its ceremony with joy and gladness, is plain from our Lord's command to his faithful disciples, to baptize all nations into the name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. It is the sacred representative rite of an entrance into the church of God, in which we are to be further instructed in all things relating to doctrine, faith, and life, as well as in all that relates to out present and future good. To turn away from baptism is to turn from that gate through which an entrance is made into the church, in which we are taught to pursue the strait and narrow path that leads to life and peace. Help us, gracious God, to regard the baptism by water as a first cleansing from outward faults by the application of the waters of life—the truths of the Word, to our souls, that so it may lead us to Thee, to be baptized with the Holy Spirit and with fire. Then shall our under-